Regional Cuisine recipe collection

Barbadians make Black Cake for weddings, birthdays and at Christimas time. Indeed, no Christmas holiday is felt to be complete without black Cake. People from many of the islands make a similar cake. This Black Cake derived from the British Plum Pudding which is a must on their Christmas menu.

Fresh spinach slow-cooked with ghee, soaked almonds, shredded coconut, caramelized brown sugar, mustard seeds, cumin, fenugreek, ginger, green chilies, and nutmeg. A rich Bengali-style spinach side dish.

Basic Sauce is used over and over again to slow-simmer a number of foods. It imparts its own flavor to what is cooked, and grows more savory with the cooking of different foods.

Crispy battered shrimp deep-fried until golden and tossed in a spicy-sweet sauce with garlic. This Chinese restaurant favorite is ready in 40 minutes for a crowd-pleasing dinner.

Almond-stuffed Madinah dates rolled in toasted sesame seeds, a traditional Arabic sweet served alongside gahwa. Just two ingredients and 25 minutes.

Easy taco soup with ground beef, kidney beans, corn, and tomatoes, simmered with taco seasoning for a 30-minute Tex-Mex dinner. Top with avocado, cheese, sour cream, and crushed corn chips.

Gobhi mung simmers split yellow mung beans with cauliflower, potatoes, and turmeric, finished with a sizzling cumin-ghee tarka. North Indian vegetarian comfort dish.

Indian-spiced basmati rice cooked with julienne potatoes, coconut, green chilies, turmeric, and whole spices in ghee. A fragrant vegetarian one-pot pilaf.

Laufabrauð (Icelandic snowflake bread): paper-thin rounds of dough decorated with intricate cut-outs, fried crispy in hot lard. A Christmas tradition from the Westfjords going back generations.

Kibbee bissaneeyeh: Lebanese layered ground lamb and bulgur casserole stuffed with spiced lamb and pine nuts, baked in a diamond-scored pattern until golden.

Traditional kolache fillings: ground walnut, dried apricot, coconut-pecan, and poppyseed. Four classic Czech and Eastern European pastry fillings for cookies and yeast buns.

Koloketes: traditional Cypriot pumpkin hand pies with bulgur, onion, and warm cinnamon in a crisp olive oil pastry. Authentic Greek Cypriot mezze or snack.

Moggy is a traditional Manx and Lancashire sweet bread loaf made with flour, lard, and golden syrup. Crumbly, dense, and faintly molasses-like. Sliced and buttered thick the way the British Isles have done it for centuries.

Layered phyllo strudel filled with fig puree and fresh pears spiced with cinnamon and allspice, drizzled with warm honey and chopped hazelnuts.

Traditional Greek chickpea soup with rosemary, olive oil, and a bright squeeze of lemon. Just five ingredients, long-soaked dried chickpeas, and the patience to let simplicity shine.

Indian-style stuffed okra pan-fried with cumin, turmeric, chili, and lemon. This bharwa bhindi is ready in 20 minutes and makes a vibrant, no-slime vegetable side dish.